Category: Perspective

In 20, 30, 40 or 50 When your brains are tired And your bones frail And your bladder weak And darkness all you see When your epidermis sheds And memory not as sharp And your teeth begin to fall out And hair not as pretty When you can sniff death so close So close you can almost breathe it in your nostrils Will you be ready?

In 20, 30, 40 or 50 Will your eyes be prepared to shut?And your spirit to bid the world farewell? Will the call be received with fear or fulfillment? And your body be ready to rest in peace? Or rather in despair, full of regret and anguish? Frightful and afraid of the coldness of the grave And uncertain of the life you’ll meet.

What if you do not have 20, 30, 40 or 50? And your brains never get tired Your bones still as hard Your bladder not as weak. And your sight still perfect. What if your epidermis is intact And your memory as sharp as ever. And your teeth so strong to break the bonesAnd your hair ever so lustrous Will you still be ready to exit?

If you had 1, 2, 3 or 4 For your spirit to desert this body But your brains and bones and bladder and sight and skin and memory and teeth and hair unblemished Will you look down and back and smile? Will the clock stop ticking and the bells stop chiming and the birds stop chirping? Will it be noticed that a beautiful soul is lost?

It may not be in 20, 30, 40 or 50 It could be in 1, 2, 3 or 4 Will you be ready to bid this earth farewell? Not in sorrow But in joy, you’d love to see how the world mourns at your passing.Will you be ready?

Deception, pseudonyms, trolling, employing tricks to increase followerships – all of these strategies have gradually seeped into our lifestyles and gained grounds in this era of tech and social media. If you missed our previous post on how social media have complicated our lives and relationships, hence, making it impossible to identify true and genuine love, read this.

Using social media tools to spread the gospel creatively, like what the Christian Blog Ghana has been actively doing in the past seven months, have revealed the competitive nature, indifference of followers and the various tactics or tricks used in this world of social media. These attitudes, sometimes, kill the spirit of a brand and this post aims to suggest some of the ways that we can show love and encouragement to each other on social media:

Let’s focus on the Overall Goal

This suggestion goes to individuals and brands which share similar aims and goals – let’s focus on the overall goal. The Christian Blog Ghana. for example, aims at using creative means to propagate the gospel, therefore, when it finds brands in the same niche, it does not hesitate to share, like and follow them. However, that is not the case with all brands, for instance on Instagram, individuals and brands swarm onto a page when there is some new content. They follow, like your post and page and, astronomically increase your number of followers within a few minutes and in a matter of seconds, the number of followers reduces drastically.

What is this tactic called, if it cannot be equated to a trick? It is even more shocking to find brands in your niche (Christian, in our case) in this activity of ‘following and unfollowing.’ Why is the focus on using this means to make people believe we are following them while we unfollow them surreptitiously or when they are not looking? Why are we competing for numbers? Don’t we share the same goal of spreading the gospel (Matthew 28:19)? Are we not supposed to encourage each other and hold each other’s hand to do that? Will it be about the number of followers we had on our social media pages when Jesus Christ comes for the second time?

Let’s Show some Kindness by Reading and Liking Content

It is quite challenging to promote Christian content on social media. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to get friends, family, and followers to like, comment and share your posts. This is not to say we thrive on your commendation but it shows us we do not have dormant pages. It gives us the ability to interact with you and it helps us understand how the Spirit is influencing you through us. Please interact with us, We would love to know if you are being blessed by our content or not. If there are changes you wish to see on our pages, do share them with us. Love is kind (1 Corinthians 13:4) – remember?

Let’s Support One Another

Let’s help each other to achieve our various goals. There may be individuals and brands who may not necessarily be in our niche but are using their platforms to push worthy causes – let’s give them the little push.

On WordPress, let’s follow other blogs, let’s read, like and comment on each other’s posts. On Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter – let’s support one another by liking, remaining loyal followers and commenting on each others’ posts. Let’s avoid seeing each other as competitors but rather one big community promoting different causes.

Today, we celebrate a huge milestone:

We have 200 followers on Instagram. God knows it’s been tough out there. Instagram is that world, where people follow and unfollow your page constantly, so with 200 followers gained organically within seven months of actively posting, it calls for a celebration. Don’t you think :)?

In this era of sophisticated technological and social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest, where the world has been reduced in size and space, how can we understand the meaning of true love?

When we do not spend quality time to know each other but with the click of the button on any smart device, find the details of someone’s life – their thoughts, their likes, dislikes…

When we are made to feel so special because a million and one friends are reminded it’s our birthday, hence, the need to wish us…

When we sometimes do not feel the urge to wish someone a happy birthday but are afraid when it gets to our turn, they’d also not send us wishes…

When we intentionally post certain content for those group of ‘friends’ to see…

When we tip vendors to post our wedding photos and ensure they go viral for our ‘friends’ to see…

When there is no clear difference between our personal lives and what we post online…

When we have specialised in ‘branding’ ourselves so well that when others get onto our social media pages, they feel their lives are too boring and must do something about it…

When we are forced to look and act in a certain way every time because that is what attracted our followers to us…

When we sometimes check out the pages of our friends and former colleagues and they make us wonder which route of life we took…

When our lives have even been reduced much further through the creation of ‘closed’ groups where we seem to find solace in the arms of people we hardly know…

When we see people in trouble but are concerned about getting their information online than helping them…

When we allow the photos of dead bodies and the manner in which people lost their lives to go viral but, when it comes to a church programme, the last stop for that poster will be our devices…

When we do not care so much about verifying details and the consequences they might have on victims, so far as, we are the first to report that juicy piece of information…

When we do not really care about the emotions of other people but say it anyway, because it will attract a lot of comments and reactions from our friends and followers…

When we ask people to say ‘Amen’ and share posts by putting fear in them…

“Share this to all your contacts or lose that special person in your life.”

“If you want 1 million dollars, type Amen and share with 5,000 people.”

When some of us are shy to declare our faith publicly because of what our friends and followers would say or do?

“Are you a Christian? No, I believe in God but not in organised religion…

In this era of social media, it’s really hard to tell who is that genuine friend or brother or sister. The next time we decide to post on social media, remember this:

…“You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight. – Luke 16:15

The weather becomes dry and hazy, and there is a high demand for shea butter and other oil-based creams to keep the skin moist.

Christmas carols are sung on the radio and there is this infectious excitement which is transmitted from the presenters to listeners. The exhilaration in the atmosphere with everyone looking forward to the new year with hope and anticipation cannot be missed.

The Pentatonix music group captures almost all the television stations with their acapella renditions of the Christmas carols. Christmas-themed movies are also shown to keep everyone in high spirits.

Business owners do not cease to remind us of the season too. On both traditional and social media, giveaways are organized and those that take advantage of them, smile into the period. Others give discounts to their goods and services, in order to clear them or rather, be a blessing to their customers.

Many corporate bodies organise end-of-year dinners, awards and parties during this season and if you are daring, you could attend some of these events (without invitation) and enjoy some free food and dance to some good tunes.

Individuals, organisations and other bodies take it upon themselves to raise funds to help the poor, needy, orphans and widows in the society. One of them is currently being organised by p31 woman . They are taking usable items and would be selling them at the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park on January 6th, 2018. The proceeds will be going to five different charities specialised in meeting the needs of children, therefore if you have any items gathering dust on your shelf, you could give them a call.

Another trend also, is the endless wedding invitations one is bound to receive during this period. Is it possible that couples wait until this period to get married in order to show their spouses to God right before the new year? (You tell me.)

In our churches, the decor is changed to commemorate the season – white, red and green themes are visible everywhere and huge Christmas trees with beautiful lights are mounted. Church services are organised where the scriptures are read and carols sang to reminisce about the birth of Jesus Christ who is the reason for the season. Apart from that, programmes designed to bring families together are also organised by most churches.

Families also spend time together since most schools and organizations break during this season. Most homes smell of good food and other savories in anticipation of visits from other family members and friends. Do not be amazed to find food items which are usually not purchased sitting in homes during the Christmas season.

How do you normally spend Christmas? Share your Christmas tradition (s) with us 😊

Quiet time is one of the most overlooked practices of Christians. I remember a few years ago back in Senior High School; a bell was sounded for us to observe 15 minutes of quiet time. Some seniors saw that as an opportunity to harass us the juniors, therefore most us sat quietly during this time only to avoid being punished. Personally I sat on my bed, stared into space or pretended to read something only to avoid being punished. I know most of my colleagues did that too.

A lot of Christians overlook this practice because we have been practicing almost our lives and it has become a ritual. Even if we observe it or not, it doesn’t really matter. Soon we accept it as a mere ritual and even when we skip it for months or even years and we do not feel guilty. We only shrug our shoulders and say, “Jesus understands”

Why quiet time is important

Even Jesus Christ (the son of God) during his time on earth made an effort to seek the face of his Father in the mornings (Mark 1:35). Other great men in the Bible like Daniel (Daniel 6:10), David (Psalm 62:1) and Moses (Exodus 34:4) received strength from the Lord through their quiet times. Such people sought the face of God before they did anything with their day.

We all need strength and the grace to go through each day. Our source of strength is God. He is the only way who knows the end from the beginning so why don’t we acknowledge that by just spending a few minutes of our day to seek his face? We can do that by reading the word, spending some time to meditate on it and to praying to the master architecture.

This does not come easy; therefore the need to make a conscious effort to practice it. I will always remember what a good friend said about quiet time. “We are all destined for greatness and the devil knows about that. He will find ways and means of making you miss that greatness that you are destined for and he can do that each day if we allow him to”

Let’s not give the devil the chance. Let us ensure we commit our ways to God. Have you had your quiet time today?